Commissioners continue building construction talks

Commissioners continue building construction talks
Station 1 amenities still being defined

It's been close to a month since the Spencerport Fire District Board of Commissioners opened the bids for the reconstruction of Station 1 and were greeted with figures that caused sticker shock. The original construction costs were pegged at an anticipated $5.2 million; the bids came back at more than $1 million higher.

Commissioners have been meeting weekly - and say they have worked diligently - to address the issue of the construction costing $228 per square foot, rather than the projected construction costs of $190 a square foot.

Prior to the fire that destroyed Station 1 on August 11, 2006, commissioners had been looking to rebuild the 9,500 square foot structure. Taxpayers in the Spencerport Fire District approved a referendum to replace the building with a 31,000 square foot, two story firehouse with a partially finished basement. The plans for the firehouse include a public meeting area, shower, bunk rooms and locker facilities for men and women, a kitchen, and most importantly, room for the department's fire trucks. The new firehouse will be large enough to accommodate two pumper trucks, a ladder truck, one rescue vehicle, a utility van and still have enough room for the firefighters to maneuver around the trucks when they are in the bays.

Commissioner Tom Friedo said after the bid opening that the board would look at "drastic cuts" to bring the price back in line with what the public voted for, but still keeping the building size workable for the firefighters now and into the future. The newly constructed building will have an anticipated useful life span of more than 60 years.

At an initial meeting following the bid opening, Andrew Petrosky, business segment leader for Bergmann Associates, presented scaled-back drawings to the board. The cuts presented would have lowered the price of the building by close to $700,000. Commissioners were unhappy with some of the cuts - especially in the diminished size of the meeting room. "We don't want to go below a capacity of 100 people in the meeting room," Friedo had said. The meeting room in the former firehouse was 990 square feet, the size of the meeting room in the proposed building ranged from 1,250 to 1,700 square feet.

Disagreements arose on cuts which would have meant changes to the facade of the building. Gary Barton, commissioner, had said, "I don't like it. The building is supposed to fit with the decor of the area and we have to make that happen."

At the August 15 board of commissioners meeting, Friedo said Bergmann came back with revamped drawings which brought the scope of the project's price tag down by about $512,000. "Those are the reductions as of right now," Friedo said. "If we reduce the building too much we lose the integrity of the building and the reason it is there. If we cut down the meeting room, for example, then it is too small for public meetings."

The next step, he said, was to get the commissioners to approve the reductions and settle on a design concept.

Other site work to begin
Friedo said demolition will begin on the site of the former firehouse within the next couple of months. "We're going to put it out to bid to begin the demolition and clean up and remove contaminated soils and put down a base so we are ready to begin construction next year," he said. "Once we get the bids out and back, the clean up should be done by late November."